Look at Ray Ray Run

This is flat out wrong. Larussa said he called for the steal and said he'd do it again and didn't regret it.

You've got better things to do than get worked up over this... better things like getting worked up about people getting worked up over this. Amazing stuff.

There are national reports that the players themselves are ALREADY questioning their manager, and the Sox manager has been the laughing stock of baseball multiple times and it is only May. Please save this narrative that it's just standard "blame the manager" nonsense that exists. Also, save us the narrative that it's normal to make a couple mistakes. If that were the case, LaRussa wouldn't be a national story and we wouldn't already have rumblings coming from this dugout. Remember in Rick Renteria's tenure, we never once heard of the players being unhappy or frustrated - with the lone exception being Keuchel saying everyone needed to be a bit more serious. 1. LaRussa was never a "genius." This perception is so broken. The guy won and went to a World Series with two of the more loaded teams of his generations. 2. What does life expectancy matter? Cognitive function decays as you age, this is simply not debatable. It's not based on life expectancy, but on duration of the brains life. 3. Belicheck and Saban are not even 70 years old. Tony LaRussa is 76. He's the oldest manager to be given a non-interim job in like 50 years (maybe longer). 4. The game has changed a little since Casey Stangel managed - not sure if you've noticed. 5. Everyone and their mother questioned the LaRussa hire when it was made, because it made no sense. Didn't fit the personality or the need of this team. 6. LaRussa had been in a front office for the previous 10 years and there had shown he really didn't know what he was doing. See the Arizona trades to the Braves and etc. There was no defending the LaRussa hire. It went against everything the team claimed they wanted, and aspired to get. Since the hire, we learned he had a pending DUI and now his Animal Care Shelter is under scrutiny for - you guessed it - racist remarks and harassment. It also wasn't his first DUI, so this idea that he's "ashamed" so it doesn't matter is kind of nonsense. Being a MLB manager is a privilege, not a right. It is a job that should be earned, not given. LaRussa has looked lethargic and acted crotchety. We do not need to wait until the end of the year. The teams production and results will not change how poor of a decision it was to hire Tony LaRussa. Bad managers can win World Series because the games are decided by the players 99.99% of the time. Sadly, this year, our manager has some managed to effect games in a negative way more than even most bad managers do. There was no justification for hiring Tony LaRussa outside of the owner wanting to put his friend in charge of his well oiled machine as a favor. Attempting to justify it may not be moronic, but it's certainly misguided and to me completely incomprehensible.

and now you're restating about things being restated over and over again and not at all discussing the topic or baseball in general. Weird take, for sure. Would be a pretty dead forum if only entirely new thoughts and ideas were presented and never updated or restated, don't you think?

Oh my. 1. Why would I make a ban bet based on two players not on the White Sox production over the next 10 years? 2. You are arguing Mookie Betts is a concern (.7 fWAR) despite a 7 year track record of being one of the best players in the world, but people showing concern over Tatis (.5 fWAR) are dopes and wrong despite Tatis barely playing more than an entire season worth of games in his career. Do you not see the irony in that? And before you argue games played, Betts has played TWO more games and out produced Tatis this year. The year where we should be concerned about Betts. Oh and Tim Anderson wasn't paid 250 million dollars to be one of the best players in baseball and was known as a raw asset. Thanks for playing.

Lol the guy leads the world in errors and can't throw to first base with a banged up shoulder and thats not a concern but Mookie Betts has a 767 ops in 25 games after winning a world series and dominating his first year after signing and that's a big concern. Caufield cracks me up.

It's amazing how people think the announcers are the ones that should know lol. Might be the dumbest excuse I read over and over. The league told manager in spring, not announcers. My goodness why do people carry water for larussa so much? If rules change in my profession it is MY job to know that. If my bosses don't tell me and I fuck up because of it I can't blame my bosses for not holding my hand. If I am the one who attends to meeting or session regarding the rule changes and fail again its not on MY team for not reminding me. A part of jobs and careers in leadership is responsibility. The people in this thread who want to blame everyone but the guy in charge who was told about the rule is completely laughable. And there are way more rules in my career than the game of baseball and they change much more often than in baseball. This is all such nonsense.

People who cite this honorable angle thing never ask why ownership doesn't pay a guy more when he clearly outplayed his contract. Weird how that works.

All Tony's roid dealers got out the game and retired 15 years ago like he should have. We good!

I really wish people would stop quoting David Samson.

He was a star who played for Tony LaRussa. What star who has played for Tony LaRussa ever didn't have those whispers?

? These takes for signing players are always the worst ones. How about.... you sign him to be COACH if you want him to be a mentor and leader. Why would he EVER pinch hit? Why would he EVER play first base? He's been the worst player in baseball, basically, for like three years.

Ahh, missed this before I responded. So funny.

Let's not forget, Tony LaRussa intentionally walked Albert Pujols this year

Players aren't trying to score zero runs. That will happen. Thats just baseball. It wasn't as if they didn't know how to score, or forgot. The manager isn't even trying to do his job correctly, he doesn't know the actual rules. A managers job is to give his team the best chance of winning by putting players in positions of success. Does scoring zero runs cause issues for winning? Sure. But the sox know they have to score runs. The problem is the manager doesn't know he has to know the rules. He doesn't know that running with a man on 3rd and 1 out in extras is dumb. He doesn't know the things he should know. He's not trying.

I have been largely in the camp that excellence has been there for Carlos before, but its health that is his bugaboo. Im not sure his fastball has ever looked this good before but his slider has been better. I think with Carlos he's as good as his arm allows him to be. With Cease, yeah. I need to see it for an extended period. As for the rotation in general, it was always going to be high variance given its youth and injury history, for that reason I feel a little more comfortable. Had we been talking about 10 year vets finding another gear I'd be pretty skeptical regardless of peripherals, but all the young guys, and Carlos given his very limited work load in his career healthy, always were going to be high variance guys. That said, ill celebrate Carlos when he makes even 25 starts. Until then I'll be holding my breath every start.

Castellanos been pretty great, and I remember quite a few fans wanting him two years ago. Castellanos would look mighty good in the middle of that lineup instead of Hendriks at the back end of the bullpen too. This is where the distribution of funds was not managed well by the FO in my opinion. To be fair, I was very worried about Hendriks overuse the past couple years before the signing and after it on this site. I hope he keeps it together and works out.

He hasn't been the worst player in baseball like he may have been last year, but it's just not something to pat anyone on the back for. I guess the saving grace for the FO is he's been better than Joc and Ozuna and etc but I wouldn't bet on the Ozuna thing continuing. Who knows with Joc, he's looked miserable.

I think we can stop saying this about Eaton now. He's slashing 211/299/368. He's not good, and he hasn't been good for quite some time. He had a nice first week, but that's about it. In Eaton's last 284 PA's (2019-2020), he has a wRC+ of 83, and his wOBA is 291. Slashing 220/290/378. He's not getting any younger. That's nearly half of a season - which could improve I guess - and it's not a glowing endorsement.

I don't get this narrative either. LaRussa has double switched and taken his DH out of the lineup and replaced it with his pitcher (the Abreu to first double switch) in an AL ballpark. The Sox held onto the lead, but if LaRussa plans on removing the DH from games for defensive reasons, he may want to know the rules pertaining pitchers hitting. Also, you play in NL ball parks by NL rules every single year now. This isn't 1990. You need to know the rules in both leagues. It's not like they're that different.

I'm not sure how a runner on second changes those. I don't like 7 inning DH because the game was designed to guarantee three times through a batting order (27 outs), but I'm not sure what essential design is changed by starting a runner on second.

To be fair, didn't Latos have like a 5 FIP or worse? Most of these guys success are being backed up by their peripherals

I dont like the 7 inning DH or the extra innings rule, but this narrative that baseball hasn't changed in 120 years is complete nonsense. Mound height has changed. DH was added. Bullpen has changed. Shift has been implemented. People of color can play now. Strike zone was changed. Spit ball was removed. Save rule was added and changed. Free agency was added. Foul balls were made strikes. Teams were added. Ballpark dimension requirements changed

You haven't set the bar all that high in the past, but somehow you have come up well short of even that miniscule bar in this discussion. Bravo.

Beard could be a lot of fun. If he were to have a big offensive year he'd shoot up rankings with that speed.